Midnight's Ride
by regentage
Summary: A solider and a lover, four years apart, and during the Great War.


Midnight's Ride

fruk oneshot - fluff

* * *

><p>"<em>Shadows all around you as you surface from the dark<br>Emerging from the gentle grip of night's unfolding arms  
>Darkness, darkness everywhere, do you feel all alone?<br>The subtle grace of gravity, the heavy weight of stone_

You don't see what you possess, a beauty calm and clear  
>It floods the sky and blurs the darkness like a chandelier<br>All the light that you possess is skewed by lakes and seas  
>The shattered surface, so imperfect, is all that you believe<p>

I will bring a mirror, so silver, so exact  
>So precise and so pristine, a perfect pane of glass<br>I will set the mirror up to face the blackened sky  
>You will see your beauty every moment that you rise<p>

"

The telegram had arrived at Arthur's house on November 1st. The man had given him a tip of his hat and eyes full of sympathy which the Brit didn't need. No, he was perfectly fine and this telegram was just going to tell him about the date the soldiers would start arriving. It had been in the newspapers, the Great War had ended finally and he didn't need those bloody newspapers telling him that.

Arthur Kirkland had woken up constantly every night since that day in July, covered in bruises and wounds. The searing pain was almost unbearable as the blood he always ended up coughing up into a tissue before reading the French lullabies on his night stand that his solider had left for him before going into war. His solider; the man whom live across the channel and had often visit him. Despite Arthur's protests, the Frenchman had stayed every weekend before returning to his country and managed to work his way into his awry heart.

After four years of tormented sleep and heartbreaking nights, November 1st he slept a night without his terrors. No blood, no bruises, no scars. But instead the telegram reached his finger tips as he closed the door silently. The teacup felt too heavy and he needed to let it go, crashing to the ground and reality pounding against Arthur's head. The porcelain shattered like glass, sliding underneath the small wardrobe and table holding the vase with the red rose. The dust kicked up and gathered in the tangling mess of gasses known as air. The sunlight from the side windows that held the door in the middle caught every single particle.

But instead of seeing every detail, his eyes had betrayed him with blurs that warped the light into stretched beams of light with a lens flare. The wet had stained his cheeks, Arthur's emerald eyes became glazed with a film of shininess. He never loved the man. Never. He hated that Frenchman who came to his house with that dumb grin and his pulled back hair that made him look like a women. His body that he endlessly threw around just to get a rise out of Arthur. Hated the likes of him. His legs were far too heavy and the ground was suddenly a comfy place to curl around the telegram and cry.

Today was November 3rd. The telegram lain under the vase with the rose, a thin dust covering it and had not been opened. Arthur pulled the tote bag draped on his shoulder, closer to his body to keep it from slipping off. It continued to anyways but he simply ignored it as he rounded the corner in London to get to King's Cross Station which loomed overhead, casting a shadow on the blonde as the clock hit 7 o'clock, on the dot.

The darkness and sorrow of the night poured into the heavily lit station as Arthur slid open the door. It was crowded. That was good for his people. He ignored the thoughts emerging into his head at the heartbreak he knew that was about to come. His feet where light, he didn't even realize he was floating to the terminals.

"Excuse me, sir."

That Frenchman, it was bloody him. Arthur rounded on his heals to come face with an ordinary person. A lump in his throat caught nothing, there was no words that came to his mind.

"I believe this is yours," the man nodded at the golden telegram held in his hand.

"Y-yes." The paper was too heavy.

"I'm sorry for your loss."

The man retreated back into the crowd with a polite tip of his hat. The crowd seemed to swarm around Arthur, eyeing the golden slip with their faces twisted with sympathy. He carried it as he reentered the crowd himself. The air around him was too empty. Nobody wants to know a man with a dead man's letter.

"_You don't see what you possess, a beauty calm and clear  
>It floods the sky and blurs the darkness like a chandelier<br>All the light that you possess is skewed by lakes and seas  
>The shattered surface, so imperfect, is all that you believe<em>"

Six. Six terminals that were carrying the soldiers back home as the newspaper had put it. He didn't care if they were lying on which were right. He had found himself a comfy seat, a bench near track number two. The Frenchman had said that two was his lucky number. Foolishness. Numbers were just words spoken to express an area holding objects.

The station was lit by the golden lamps hanging from the ceiling and the dimness of the clocks. The light was a warm color, vintage feel to it that made Arthur feel like he home. The candles that rested on the dining room table, the off-white table cloth that has the droplets of wax cemented onto the surface. He hated that man. How he would light that candle like magic with his graceful hands. The same hands that fed Arthur and rubbed his back comforting him when he was on the edge of tears. But when the solider left, the darkness comforted him while the ghosts outside haunted him at night. He absolutely despised him.

Steam bellowed from the train as it pulled into the station. Train number five was the first to arrive. He ignored his own sadness, giving a small stubborn smile as the ragged soldiers took steps off the train and embraced the small children and wives with warm hugs. Arthur tried to cancel out his breaking heart in return for the families happiness. Their faces brightened in the beautiful lights, making the men, women, and children look much younger then they were.

He looked down at his lap, turning his wrist over to see the leather watch. 8:43 he read as his eyes squinted down at the small hands ticking over the black numbers. Arthur glanced over at the telegram that was poking out of his pocket. He didn't bring it here, he had left it under the vase in the entrance. No- he wasn't going to cry here, he refused. There was no hope that his solider would be on the train. Maybe not alive, a ghost of the trains dressed in his military clothing, blonde hair matted with mud and face covered in caked blood. A transparent figure that Arthur would try to cling onto for dear life.

Ghosts were natural for him. Ghosts of the past and people that Arthur could recognize in the matter of seconds. They grazed the streets of London that ordinary citizens couldn't see. A select few like him could. But he was the only one in his country. The only one to hold this telegram and know that the ghost of his _lover_ would be haunting him forever- voiceless and void of warmth, emotions of sadness hidden behind his eyes would strain Arthur's heart to death.

Crying was no option.

"_Shadows all around you as you surface from the dark  
>Emerging from the gentle grip of night's unfolding arms<br>Darkness, darkness everywhere, do you feel all alone?  
>The subtle grace of gravity, the heavy weight of stone<em>"

Well not now, he could later once he saw the ghost floating over towards him to the platform of two. Hours ticked by as Arthur sat in the bench, standing up now and there to stretch his legs or get rid of his nerves that were building up inside his chest. Soon, when the clock hit 9:30 with a ding of the big clock did the other two trains, six and three pulled into the station.

It begun to grow silent in the station even with the constant steam escaping the trains as they sat on the railroad tracks. Since only five, six, and three had pulled in left one, two, and four. Arthur had nothing to do but lay down on the bench and rest. He was exhausted. He hadn't done anything besides walk up to the train station and plop himself down on the bench, but the toll of all the pain he had been suffering for the past four years worn him down to this.

Arthur had even entered the war in the beginning as a nurse but soon withdrew two years later since both the pain of combat and the rest of the pain was getting in the way of his job. But now he worked at the local hospitals for all of the soldiers whom had been sent home for their injuries. It gave him comfort that he could help someone who had maybe one day talked to his solider during battle.

"I've heard of him," one man had told him one day. "We were in the same area for sometime..." The young man was twenty five from his bed records and a Canadian. From fighting in France, he had been sailed off to England in London so that he could return to Canada after the war.

Arthur was checking up on his finger which had to be taken off and left a stub. "Was the bloody frog hard to deal with?" He had asked with a irritated grunt.

The man laughed softly. "No sir, he's a great solider. Always cheering up when their down, talking to someone when their lonely. Good man." He nodded.

The memory and dream came to an end when train four rolled up into the station. Arthur just stirred lightly as the conductors shouted the number of the train over and over again. The echo of footsteps and the small clicks of baggage hitting the floor had lulled the Brit back into a gentle sleep.

"_It was a long and dark December  
>From the rooftops I remember<br>There was snow, white snow_

Clearly I remember  
>From the windows they were watching<br>While we froze down below

When the future's architectured  
>By a carnival of idiots on show<br>You'd better lie low

If you love me, won't you let me know?

Was a long and dark December  
>When the banks became cathedrals<br>And the fox became God

Priests clutched onto Bibles  
>Hollowed out to fit their rifles<br>And a cross was held aloft

Bury me in armour  
>When I'm dead and hit the ground<br>A love poem, it unfolds

And if you love me, won't you let me know?

I don't want to be a soldier  
>Who the captain of some sinking ship<br>Would stow, far below.

So if you love me, why d'you let me go?

I took my love down to violet hill  
>There we sat in snow<br>All that time she was silent still

Said if you love me, won't you let me know?  
>If you love me, won't you let me know?<p>

"

His solider was not on the train. Arthur had ran up to the doors to find that the soldiers stepping out were greeted by their families. He had no one to greet. It was too late at night now. He wasn't coming home to him, never. He had never even told him how much he loved him. Never and now he was dead. And now Arthur decided that the bench was once again a great place to sleep.

The train was a panther at night, steaming into the station and docking at the first port. The bag that had ended up on the shoulder was the exact looking one that Arthur had himself and bought him one when he went to war. It reminded him way too much of the short blonde Brit who got mad at him for the simplest of things. H had wanted to kiss him before he bordered the train but Arthur didn't even notice. And that was the last time he saw him until now.

His lover was sleeping on a bench near one of the terminals, his head resting against the arm rest with to the bag to prop it up. He looked a little worse for wear, bruises all over his face. The Frenchman took steady steps over towards Arthur, dropping his bag on the floor and wrapping his arms around him.

"Oi!" Arthur gasped at the contact, getting ready to pry off the stranger before realizing who it was, "F-Francis..?"

"Arthur..." Francis breathed, his voice twisted with happiness and tears.

Arthur buried his face into his shoulder, letting out shuddering sobs and strained breaths. Francis pulled him away, kneeling down as the nurse sat up, ducking below so he could see his lover's face. "Arthur..._Mon chérie_, what's wrong?"

Arthur continued sob, covering his face with his hands before the solider wrapped his fingers around the Brit's wrists and yanked his hands away. He kept his eyes closed and silently refused to look at his face, the same face that was bruised and scared.

"Please tell me..." He pleaded, moving closer inwards, close enough to hear the shorter man's breathing.

Instead of giving a reply, Arthur pushed forwards the telegram that had sat on his lap. Soon a laugh was emitted from the solider. He covered his mouth and since the both of them being drunk on emotions, Francis had started to cry, opening up the telegram. Arthur was slightly puzzled but he gave a stubborn sniffle followed by more tears.

"Arthur, this wasn't about me. It wasn't even about the war. All they were saying is that you were the only person who would get the telegrams. It told you I would be on the first train. Which one did you think I was on?"

A smile cracked on Arthur, his eyes extremely blurred from the thick blobs of salty tears that had formed. "I-I love you." He strained, laughing at the joy now. A thin blush crept onto his face.

"_Bury me in armour  
>When I'm dead and hit the ground<br>A love poem, it unfolds_"

"I love you too, Arthur." Francis warmly said back, picking up the shorter man in his arms and placing their bags in his lap.

"Say it in French," Arthur replied weakly.

Francis looked like Arthur, the same cuts and bruises dotting his face. His hair was a little dirty and so was the rest of him. He was surprised that he hadn't complained about it or something that the Frenchman would say. He wanted him dearly to make a joke about it so he hadn't lost his Francis in the War.

"_Je t'aime trop._"

The British man giggled. His face flushed with a thick blush that looked rather cute at him. Francis raised an eyebrow, taken slightly aback by his new blush. He was somewhat surprised that a thicker blush hadn't covered Arthur's face when he had finally admitted his love that Francis' heart was aching to know if his friend was actually his lover. He loved him too much. He loved him enough to go fight for him- to protect him from the monsters.

He shifted in the taller blonde's arms as he carried him through London, towards Arthur's town home building. Arthur sat up, licking his lips before locking them against Francis's. The Frenchmen shifted back in surprise before pushing his lips against his nurse's even harder. Their tongues clashed against the night air as everything melted away besides them and how hot Arthur was feeling.

Francis pulled back, "Arthur, you're so straightforward now, what happened?"

Artie averted his eyes and a thicker blush. "Shut up."

They soon came to their door which Francis pushed open with a small grunt. He picked up their bags and threw it onto the war rode in the front entrance before carrying Arthur up the stairs and to his bedroom, humming a tone happily and with that dumb grin of his on his face.

He dropped Arthur down onto the bed gently, creeping up on top of him. A blush remained on his face but not as intense as before. "Get off of me, Francis."

"Hmmm, _non_."

Arthur shoved his knee up, hitting Francis right in the crotch. The Frenchman yelped in pain, getting off of his lover and laying down next to him.

"You can sleep with me, but no funny busy or I'll shove you off the bed."

"Fine... _Oui_, but no promises."

Arthur kicked him in the shin lightly before tucking his head in between Francis' arm and chest. He reached down and plopped a kiss on the Brit's forehead, pulling his smaller body closer. He shifted his head up for the moment, kissing the Frenchman again.

"I love you."

"I love you too, goodnight Arthur."

Since four years at war, this was the first time Francis saw the ghosts roaming London.

But it was the first time in four years that Francis dreamed.


End file.
